Windows 7 beta 1 makes early debut

[zatoicchi]

The first beta of Microsoft's next operating system has apparently been spotted in the wild.

The first beta of Windows 7, which is expected to hit retailer shelves in time for the 2009 holiday shopping season, has reportedly popped up on torrent trackers as an ISO file. ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes also reports having a copy and has posted his first impressions of the beta.

Overall, Kingsley-Hughes wrote that he likes Windows 7, calling it "solid and fast." But he does take issue with a few new features:

The new revamped taskbar is visually very interesting (and certainly a lot easier to use at higher screen resolutions that the Vista or XP taskbar), but it tries to do too much and as such comes across as kludgey and counter-intuitive. One failure is that it's hard to tell the difference between apps that are running and shortcuts that have been pinned to the taskbar.

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[pi_1st]

with good reports on windows7 that's on equal level compared to vista sp1 even on betas makes me wonder maybe they have done it right this time

[pi_1st]

Ballmer Makes It Official: Windows 7 Beta Available
Microsoft last night officially released the first beta of its Windows 7 to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. The beta will be open to all testers tomorrow. By Jeffrey Schwartz and Kurt Mackie

now available for download to msdn/technet subscribers
all others will soon be able to download from windows 7 site

[Snitlev]

Over the weekend we finally found enough time to install Windows 7 build 7000 beta 1 and here are some of our first impressions. We still don't understand the excitement, as Windows 7 is nothing more than Vista Service Pack 3, or should we say Vista done right.
The installation takes just over 20 minutes and in about 22 minutes you are ready to start working. The installation is a 3.3GB DVD. We tried Windows 7 Beta 1 on a 3.375GHz Core 2 Quad machine with 8GB memory and Geforce GTX 280 on an EVGA Nforce 750i motherboard, and we have to say we were surprised that the installation went fast and well.

Quelle with Screens: Fudzilla - Windows 7 installs in 22 minutes